Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Collection
Publication
The Belknap Press (1977), Edition: 16th Edition., Paperback, 607 pages
Description
This volume is a widely-read book of political philosophy and ethics. Arguing for a principled reconciliation of liberty and equality, it attempts to solve the problem of distributive justice (this concerns what is considered to be socially just with respect to the allocation of goods in a society). The resultant theory is known as "Justice as Fairness", from which the author derives his two famous principles of justice. The first of these two principles is known as the equal liberty principle. The second principle is split into two parts; the first, known as fair equality of opportunity, asserts that justice should not benefit those with advantageous social contingencies; while the second, reflecting the idea that inequality is only justified if it is to the advantage of those who are less well-off, is known as the difference principle.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member aleph123
I discovered this book through a real "apology of Rawls" that was contained within a book from a former speechwriter for President Reagan.
You may agree or disagree with it, but, in organizational design, I used its concepts often not as a guideline for design (different organizations have different
As often what matters is not that you share the answers, but that you can position yourself and your choices vs. the questions coming from sources that do not necessarily concur with your choices.
Having said that, I think that, politically, there are still some parts of the book that are relevant today, moreover when you consider that in our modern society where everybody is constantly switching status and roles, often we demand fairness in some venues (or "ecosystems", to use today's trendy lingo), while fail to give it in others
You may agree or disagree with it, but, in organizational design, I used its concepts often not as a guideline for design (different organizations have different
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concepts of "fairness" and distribution of power and resources), but as a framework to ask questions.As often what matters is not that you share the answers, but that you can position yourself and your choices vs. the questions coming from sources that do not necessarily concur with your choices.
Having said that, I think that, politically, there are still some parts of the book that are relevant today, moreover when you consider that in our modern society where everybody is constantly switching status and roles, often we demand fairness in some venues (or "ecosystems", to use today's trendy lingo), while fail to give it in others
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LibraryThing member heidilove
some of the most cutting edge ideas of fairness. i'm still not convinced about rights, per se, but this is a ground-breaking work o njustice nonetheless.
LibraryThing member BrianDewey
I haven't read past the intro, but boy what an intro. The great modern work on distributive justice.
LibraryThing member bobshackleton
For all its flaws, the most important American contribution to political philosophy in the 20th century.
LibraryThing member steve.clason
The book has three sections: Theory, Institutions, Ends. Theory and Institutions deserve five stars, Ends 3 (or less, I want to be generous.)
Rawls' goal when he wrote the first edition (published in 1971) was to explicate a coherent alternative, based on social-contract theory, to the
In the first two sections he builds a theory and then some institutions implementing that theory based on a thought-experiment he calls "the original condition" (among other terms), which is an imaginary situation where a group of people who are going to live within a society make up the principles and then the institutions for the society without knowing what their role in the society will be and what their status relative to the others' will be.
That lack of knowledge he calls the "veil of ignorance" and although it's a fine tool for refining the theory without having to deal with the complexities of lived-life, it also gives notice that he is going to be concerned throughout only with disembodied theory with only an occaisional hand-wave to real situations, and that can get frustrating, fast. I suppose if you're a theorist keeping things tidy is more important than keeping things real, but most of us aren't theorists.
The last section, in which he tests his theory with respect to real world situations just falls apart for me. My marginal notes say things like "when you're being interviewed on Oprah", and "maybe in an alternative universe." It could be that the real life-experience of a tenured professor is enough different from my more (ahem) worldy experiences, but it seemed like he was describing situations in bizarro-world, not mine.
But still, after a careful reading of this seminal work, I have an increased confidance in my background understanding of the issues surrounding a theory of justice and am launching myself into some of the more recent treatises on the subject.
Rawls' goal when he wrote the first edition (published in 1971) was to explicate a coherent alternative, based on social-contract theory, to the
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then-prevalent utilitarian understanding of justice. He must have succeeded--everyone seems now to nod a head in his direction when discussing justice whether they agree with him or not. Not being an academic I could be missing some water-cooler gossip that he failed utterly, but I don't think so.In the first two sections he builds a theory and then some institutions implementing that theory based on a thought-experiment he calls "the original condition" (among other terms), which is an imaginary situation where a group of people who are going to live within a society make up the principles and then the institutions for the society without knowing what their role in the society will be and what their status relative to the others' will be.
That lack of knowledge he calls the "veil of ignorance" and although it's a fine tool for refining the theory without having to deal with the complexities of lived-life, it also gives notice that he is going to be concerned throughout only with disembodied theory with only an occaisional hand-wave to real situations, and that can get frustrating, fast. I suppose if you're a theorist keeping things tidy is more important than keeping things real, but most of us aren't theorists.
The last section, in which he tests his theory with respect to real world situations just falls apart for me. My marginal notes say things like "when you're being interviewed on Oprah", and "maybe in an alternative universe." It could be that the real life-experience of a tenured professor is enough different from my more (ahem) worldy experiences, but it seemed like he was describing situations in bizarro-world, not mine.
But still, after a careful reading of this seminal work, I have an increased confidance in my background understanding of the issues surrounding a theory of justice and am launching myself into some of the more recent treatises on the subject.
Show Less
LibraryThing member vegetarian
After earning his Ph.D. from Princeton in 1950, Rawls taught there until 1952, when he received a Fulbright Fellowship to Oxford University (Christ Church), where he was influenced by the liberal political theorist and historian Isaiah Berlin and the legal theorist H. L. A. Hart. After returning to
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the United States, he served first as an assistant and then associate professor at Cornell University. In 1962, he became a full professor of philosophy at Cornell, and soon achieved a tenured position at MIT. That same year, he moved to Harvard University, where he taught for almost forty years, and where he trained some of the leading contemporary figures in moral and political philosophy, including Martha Nussbaum, Thomas Nagel, Onora O'Neill, Adrian Piper, Christine Korsgaard, Susan Neiman, Claudia Card, Thomas Pogge, T.M. Scanlon, Barbara Herman, Joshua Cohen, Thomas E. Hill, Jr. and Paul Weithman. Show Less
LibraryThing member HadriantheBlind
A long involved theory of justice - create a society where you would be treated fairly, if you do not know what position you would occupy in such a society.
LibraryThing member MashaK99
I read this one quite a while ago in college, back when I was in the process of choosing which Western political philosophy is most aligned with my views. My prof recommended this one as a companion/alternative to classical liberalism Locke and Hayek. I have to admit the central concept of the
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"original position" is an interesting one, and while Rawls uses it to justify the basic welfare state (although without excessive inter-generational redistribution or punitive taxation), it can be used to argue for the merits of free markets as well. Show Less
LibraryThing member BobFitzconner
A bit dated, ignorant of behavioral economics, 90% waffle. Potentially a useful reference source but needs savage editing.
LibraryThing member muir
Learn about the veil of ignorance.
Subjects
Awards
Ralph Waldo Emerson Award (Winner — 1972)
Order of the Coif Book Award (1973)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1971
1999 (revised ed.)
Physical description
607 p.; 8.9 inches
ISBN
0674880145 / 9780674880146